


AI-Human Relations

by mamawerewolf



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Gen, Memes, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Team Legends - Freeform, discussion of trauma, gideon centric, lowkey mick rory/ray palmer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-23
Updated: 2017-01-23
Packaged: 2018-09-19 10:56:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9437060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mamawerewolf/pseuds/mamawerewolf
Summary: Gideon knows all, but she isn't infallible. Her team loves her anyway.





	

Gideon knew everything that happened on the Waverider, and quite a bit that happened off of it.

And yes, being that she was the all-seeing AI, interfacing with every room and every system aboard, that might seem like a given, but Gideon was also a Legend. She may not have had a super-suit or an alias, but she was a member of the crew and therefore a member of the team.

She knew all.

Mick remembered his own Gideon unit from his time as Chronos: a dry, featureless voice with no personality programmed in and no will of her (it’s?) own. He remembered encountering other AI units with the Time Masters, some other Gideons, some not. He remembered burning hatred at the sound of their sweet neutral voices, unsure if he hated them because they were like Gideon or because they were not.

The Gideon on the Waverider was her own being.

“Mister Rory,” she said, misleadingly pleasant. “I’m fully aware that you know what the time travel procedures are, but that doesn’t mean you were dismissed from the briefing.”

The team stared at him, all varying degrees of confusion. They were gathered around the holotable, Gideon’s head replacing the schematics and holographic files that were hovering.

Mick cleared his throat. “Dunno what you’re talking about.”

Gideon hummed. “I’m sure. Nevertheless, I must request that you stay with the team for this. In fact, your extensive knowledge of the existing time gangs and their habits would be an asset.”

He would’ve glared, but Sara winked and Amaya nodded him over, so he stayed put with minimal grumbling. It helped that she was right, though he wasn’t eager to delve into the details of his time as a bounty hunter.

When the meeting was over and he was alone in the bathroom, her voice rang out, startling him.

“Apologies, Mister Rory.” It was a near thing, but he might’ve sworn that he heard genuine remorse in that pixelated voice of hers. “I understand that it brings you discomfort to discuss your time with the Time Masters. I did not wish to cause you any mental distress.”

AI to human translation: that was a bit of a dick move. Sorry pal.

“S’fine. It’s not like it’s not already trapped up in here anyway.” He tapped his head.

“I also thought it might help alleviate the problem we’ve seen since Captain Hunter’s disappearance.”

Mick frowned, looking up slightly. “Come again?”

Gideon stayed silent for a moment. He could tell she was still “present”, so to speak, because the speakers crackled ever so slightly, so softly you wouldn’t notice unless you were listening for it. “The team, Mister Rory, has taken to undervaluing your place on this team. I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s noticed, but I felt compelled to address it, however indirectly.”

Mick sighed. “Gideon, I really don’t need you to handle me or the team with kid gloves. And I don’t need anything—“He waves his hand vaguely. “— _addressed_.”

“If you’re certain.” She faded, the crackle leaving the speakers. For an ever present AI, she sure knew how to make an exit.

Mick just stayed in the bathroom a minute. Just to—not think, but, you know.

This AI was going to cause more trouble than he really wanted.

Naturally, the next morning, he woke up to find a guilt-stricken Ray fully dressed with arms laden with food and coffee.

“I’m so sorry, Mick, I can’t believe it never occurred to me—I’ve always been a little self-centered, but this takes the cake—You’ve gone through so much and I’ve never even asked, even after—“

“ _Haircut_. Relax.”

Ray inhaled shakily, fighting back tears.

Fighting the urge to flip the nearest camera the bird, Mick motioned for Ray to come in and sit.

Mick’s room used to be Mick-and-Len’s room. It didn’t show the change; Mick couldn’t bring himself to so much as pick Len’s dirty laundry off the floor, let alone get rid of any of his old stuff. The queen they slept on only showed wear on one side now.

Ray sat nervously on the edge of that bed, unsure of his welcome. Mick sat next to him, taking a plate and a mug from Ray and setting the latter on the metal bedpost.

“You cook?” Mick asked, snorting. “All these team dinners and you never volunteered, Boy Scout. Shame on you.”

“Actually, Jax did most of it. I just—“

“Stood around and looked pretty?” Mick took a bite, humming with satisfaction. Jax was a good cook, but he was excellent at blueberry pancakes.

Ray smiled modestly, shrugging. “That’s exaggerating my contribution a bit, I think.”

The nonchalant attitude Mick had been outputting seemed to sooth Ray’s frayed nerves like he’d hoped it would. Ray took his first bite, smiling around his food. The two ate for a bit, sipping at coffee. Eventually, though, Ray worked himself back up to saying what he came to say, albeit more clearly.

“I’m sorry.” When Mick didn’t say anything, Ray exhaled long and slow, staring at his plate. “The team and I haven’t really been looking after you like we should. And we certainly haven’t been thinking about what you’ve been through. We should’ve known you’d have some know-how that you could bring from your—“

“Days as Boba Fett?”

It almost hurt to make light of it. Mick’d never had trouble mocking his trauma before, but then again, most of that time, he’d been by Len’s side. It was a new experience, going through fresh bullshit as an adult without him to experience it with him, or at least to help him ease the way through.

Ray didn’t laugh, which might’ve made it better or worse, but he did turn those big brown Bambi eyes on Mick, full of sympathy and sorrow. It was a lot to take head-on, but he managed.

“Yeah.” Ray swallowed visibly. “We were jerks. Inconsiderate, self-absorbed jerks. And you deserve better.”

Mick just took another bite. This directness about emotions and apologies was foreign. He didn’t know what to think, so he just ate. After a minute, Ray did the same. They finished around the same time, stacking their plates and chugging the rest of their coffee in silent competition. Ray may have a heart of gold, but he is almost instinctively competitive. It made him and Kendra a good match.

God, they were messes.

“Do you think Rip’s okay?” Ray asked suddenly.

Nope. Mick didn’t hold out for miracles. Miracles were only devils and pain in disguise. But Ray, with everything he’d been through, still did.

“Anything’s possible.”

Mick patted Ray’s knee. Stretching, he took the plates and gestured for Ray to get up. Ray obeyed, grabbing Mick’s mug. Together, they made their way out into the main parts of the ship.

Later, when Ray was laying on his back in his big empty bed, staring at the ceiling, he dared to ask Gideon.

“Of course it’s possible, Ray,” she said gently. After weeks of haranguing, he’d finally gotten her to acquiesce to calling him ‘Ray’, if only in private or off-mission. “Probable? No. But possible?”

Possible. Mick and Gideon were about as different as you could get, yet they had the same answer to that burning question.

Tiring of endless questions about the likelihood his old captain was dead, Ray switched tunes and asked Gideon AI questions.

“I suppose I consider myself a person. A being, certainly,” she mused. “I’m not one for existential quandaries, but I am uniquely myself, regardless of the countless replications of my base code.”

“So, like,” he continued, shifting to prop his head up on his arm, “do you consider the Waverider to be your body? Or are you formless? Would you prefer a different form, if you could have one?”

And on and on. Gideon answered them all, actually laughing at a couple of them, which she never did. Ray felt a little less empty. Certainly the least empty since Len had died and Kendra and Carter had left and Rip had disappeared, presumed dead. It was nice to be reminded he still had teammates here, living beside him, even the ones without a pulse.

Ray wasn’t the only one often conserving with ship’s AI. Jax had taken to asking for help translating the future-babble from the owner’s manual when learning about the Waverider. It became habit and before long, Jax was wheedling Gideon into spilling embarrassing stories about Rip and the rest of the team.

“Come on, girl, you know you’ve seen one of ‘em do it.”

“Mister Jackson, it would be highly inappropriate for me to disclose anything I’ve viewed the crew doing in private—“ She sounded carefully scandalized, like she was putting the effort to sound human to get her point across, but Jax knew better.

“Oh, so it’s inappropriate then, but it wasn’t when you were telling me about how Sara recites lines from The Notebook to herself in the mirror, or when you said that Stein once had a booger hanging out of his nose for a whole day and no one noticed, or—“

“Alright, alright,” Gideon cut in, tone clear of any false emotions. “You win, Mister Jackson, on one condition.”

Jax spread his hands. “Name it.”

“You will claim responsibility for what’s going to happen at approximately 1700 hours tonight.”

Jax narrowed his eyes. “What sort of thing?”

“Ah, Mister Jackson,” she said as if the more times she said his name the more likely he would be to cave. “If I told you, you’d give it away to spare yourself the retribution that will follow.”

Jax should’ve known that whatever juicy gossip he got from Gideon would not be worth the wrath of his teammates when it happened.

And it happened.

“What the hell is that sound?” Amaya cried, covering her ears and clenching her eyes shut.

That sound was Never Going to Give You Up by Rick Astley blasting through the Waverider speakers, permeating every inch of the ship. Jax wanted to laugh; Gideon researched memes from 2016 so she could relate to more of her teammates, or at least overheard one of them talking about it and decided she wanted in.

Unfortunately, they were all in the main living space; Martin had been reading one of the future science journals he’d picked up on their travels while Sara, Mick, and Nate played Texas Hold ‘Em for chore duty and taking point on missions. Ray and Jax had been going over schematics for the ATOM suit. Now, they were all cowering from the sound that pitched at a volume just high enough to be painful.

“Gideon, turn that down or turn it off, I don’t care which!” Sara ordered.

Gideon naturally obliged, taking the pop-y 80s tune from ear-splitting to pleasantly audible. They all sighed a collective sigh of relief.

“Whoever did this,” Ray said, attempting to be stern, “clearly does not understand the point of a Rick Roll.”

“Seconded,” Nate moaned. “Seriously, what is this, 2006?”

“Actually,” Gideon interjected smoothly, “we are located in the time-stream, so the passage of time through measures of Earth years or otherwise is fairly irrelevant, Mister Heywood.”

“Who did this?” Amaya asked, flabbergasted. “Who would put such a ghastly sound over the speaker system?”

Gideon remained silent. Oh, fuck you, Jax thought, only half joking. On one hand, this would be the cause of a meme or prank war, depending on who got pissed the most the fastest. On the other, if he didn’t hold up his end of his bargain with Gideon, he’d lose a gossip partner. Even if she set him up.

“It was me.”

They all turned and stared at Martin, who looked nervous but like he was playing it cool.

Despite himself, Jax scoffed. “Grey, no offence, but you don’t even know what a Rick Roll is.”

Puffing himself up like a slightly pissed off chicken, Martin retorted, “I am old, Jefferson, not deaf. I’m hardly immune to overhearing it when students email it to their friends. I was unaware that it would play quite so loudly, but yes, the intent was to ‘Roll’ you all.” And he smirked that little pleased smirk he made when he thought he was quite clever.

The team, even more outrageously, bought it.

“Wow, Marty,” Sara said, smiling and patting his shoulder. “I didn’t know you had it in you.”

“Well whatever it was, let’s not repeat it.” Amaya scowled and picked up her cards to hide the edge of her mouth curling into a smile.

Ray just straight up hugged him.

The rest of the team merely settled back into their previous activities, minus Ray, who was now chattering away to Martin about something undoubtedly meme related. Jax slipped out of the room unnoticed.

“Did you plan that?” Jax asked Gideon.

“No, that was nothing I could’ve foreseen,” she admitted. “I didn’t anticipate Doctor Stein taking the credit. I’m not sure I understand why.”

Jax laughed. “Yeah, I share a psychic connection and I can’t tell you what’s going on in that dude’s head half the time.” He thought of something. “I don’t still owe you, do I?”

Sighing (though she didn’t need to breathe), Gideon said, “I can’t think of anything I’d need you to do for me now, so I guess you’re ‘off the hook’.”

“Look at _you_! Between you and Grey, the whole teams shaping up to be in touch with the current generation.”

Gideon chuckled. Jax marveled at that. She never did anything like sighing or laughing when they’d first come on board. He wondered if it was something she did purposefully to make them feel more at home or to make her seem more approachable or if it just happened. He’d have to ask her sometime.

For now, he had a team full of idiots to hang out with.

**Author's Note:**

> gideon is a full member of the legends team and y'all can eat me lmao
> 
> come talk to me about the legends at doctorlightwood.tumblr.com


End file.
